LMP suspects abuse of EU funds at National Public Service University

Budapest, April 27 (MTI) – Budapest’s National Public Service University (NKE) allegedly received European Union funding on multiple occasions for the exact same projects and engaged in overpricing and unjustified spending, the co-leader of green opposition LMP said on Thursday.

Ákos Hadházy told a press conference that EU auditors had raised the alarm over suspicions of “extremely serious abuses” at the university, which he said also raised the question of the potential criminal responsibility of the institution’s lector, András Patyi.

Citing press reports, Hadházy said the NKE had used 3 billion forints (EUR 9.6m) from a 17 billion forint EU contract to cover personnel costs, which he said was enough to finance 10 months’ wages for their staff of 740.

As another example, he said the university had earlier won funding for a 4.3 billion forint IT upgrade whose costs ended up being exactly equal to the estimated value of the contract. This is only possible if the costs of the project had been discussed with those in charge of its implementation beforehand, he said.

He said LMP would file a public data request for all of the university’s application documents for EU funding along with its contracts and the applications’ feasibility studies.